The aims of the Research Career Development Core (RCDC) are to identify, attract, select, and to provide training and mentoring for future research leaders in the field of frailty and preservation of independence for older adults. The long-term objective is the establishment of a Core of well, trained, highly motivated junior faculty who will become leaders and mentors in frailty research. The RCDC will emphasize the development of the skills required to apply basic research findings to clinical investigation, clinical findings to mechanistic studies, and to disseminate the results of clinical investigation to the broader health provider community. Faculty will also develop other abilities essential for academic career advancement including those in written and oral communication, ethics, and collaboration. The RCDC will utilize the tremendous array of multidisciplinary talent on the Hopkins campus committed to aging research. It will facilitate cooperative and integrative work among them so as to support the OAIC junior faculty as they study, design, and test interventions to measure, understand, and eventually reverse the contribution of frailty to loss of independence in older individuals. Most importantly, RCDC resources will provide the invaluable protected time and mentoring essential to enable the supported junior faculty to successfully bridge the critical transition between fellowship and independent grant funding.